This year Elizabeth and I wanted to create some fun plans for Socktober, a month-long celebration of sock-knitting! We had things all lined up for a sock-focused knit-along among other things, but just as we were getting ready to launch I got really, really sick. Elizabeth stepped in and helped me out with trying to get things organized (even though she's supposed to be on maternity leave), and everything more-or-less went along the way we'd planned... except that I didn't get better - I got worse.

Working in the dye studio can be pretty physically demanding - I'm on my feet all day, slinging around heavy dye pots full of wet wool. So I try to make sure I bring lots of good snacks to the studio with me to keep my energy up throughout the day. I've decided to share a few of my favourite energy-boosting recipes here on the blog, I hope you enjoy them!

﻿﻿One of my favourite tasks to have our interns help out with in the studio the past two summers has been creating new colours for our yarn lines. Last year we got to play with dyeing a new base yarn, which eventually became Largo Organic. This year we wanted to focus on expanding the colour range for our Pizzicato sock yarn (a fingering-weight BFL/nylon blend).

We are very excited to announce that we will be continuing our monthly knitting teas this fall at a new home, La Societé Textile! Our first knitting tea of the season will be on Saturday, September 23 from 1:30 to 4:30pm.

Creating a new set of colors to dye yarn can be quite confusing. Since the beginning of my internship I mainly followed recipes. When I was given the mission to create a new one, I realised that I didn’t really pay much attention to how each of the colours influences each other when you mix them. Each colour has its own ‘’strength’’, if I can say, and it gave me a hard time to get the colour I wanted to create.﻿﻿

Summer is a time when I gravitate towards certain types of projects: lace (not too hot and bulky), socks (small and portable), shawls (don’t have to worry about fit), and crochet (fast).

Hitting three out of four of my vacation-project favourites, this seems like the perfect time of year to review one of Interweave’s latest compilation books:Classic Crochet Shawls. This book includes 20 shawl patterns from the Interweave archives, so some may look familiar as they’ve all been previously published in either books or magazines.

Russian grafting is a method of joining live knitting stitches and is used as an alternative to Kitchener stitch in our Argyle Christmas Stockingpattern. It is a good choice here because the stripes on the toe would not align exactly if you grafted using Kitchener stitch, so the decorative Russian grafting is used instead.

This particular method of Russian grafting uses a crochet hook to join the stitches. Use a crochet hook that is the same size or slightly smaller than your knitting needles. Russian grafting can also be used to join two separate pieces of knitting.

Annie, one of our interns in the dye studio this spring, has been documenting her experience so far. Here's a little taste of what it's like behind the scenes from her perspective:

Today, I mixed some blue dye. Like with the other colors, we have to be very careful with the recipe. Mixing colors feels like being in Breaking Bad. With my gloves, my apron and my mask, I probably look like a mad scientist. It’s probably my favorite task, creating beautiful colors.

Today would have been our Grandma Dorner's 90th birthday. To celebrate the occasion and to remember her, I spent the afternoon baking this cake with my son. Although Grandma made Diós (walnut) Torte for most Dorner birthdays when I was a kid, this banana cake is one of her recipes that sticks out most in my memories of spending time at my grandparents' house, because it was more of an everyday cake that she would often have on hand when we went over for a visit. I hope that you enjoy it too. Happy birthday Grandma!

It's a little bit hard to believe, but Sweet Paprika has been in business for exactly 10 years this month! We have a few things planned to celebrate our anniversary, but I thought it would be nice to start off with a little look at where we started, and where we've been, over the past decade.

It all began way back in 2007, when Elizabeth and I, and our other sister Margaret, were all living in Ottawa. We knew we wanted to put our skills to work in some sort of business, but we weren't exactly sure what direction that would take us in yet.

I've been wanting to learn to spin yarn for the longest time, and over the past few years I've picked up a couple of spindles and tried my hand at it a few times. I kept trying to learn in different ways, from books, from online videos, and even did a short introductory workshop. And although I was progressing and getting better it seemed like an awfully slow process.

A few years ago Elizabeth proposed that we make the month of February each year "Finish it February": a time to pull all of our unfinished objects (UFOs in knitter slang) out of the closet or from under the bed and dust them off.

This is the third year we've done this, and I still have quite a number of projects to pull out and deal with each year, but I've noticed that although I still have many very old ones (which I keep swearing I'll finish one day), I've been much better about not accumulating new ones since we started this.

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About Sweet Paprika

Sweet Paprika Designs is a small business based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. We focus on creating high-quality materials for knitters and crocheters, and offer a range of hand-dyed yarns, kits and patterns.

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About Sweet Paprika

Sweet Paprika Designs is a small business based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. We focus on creating high-quality materials for knitters and crocheters, and offer a range of hand-dyed yarns, kits and patterns.

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